


what little remains (of you and i)

by postfixrevolution



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character development kinda, Coming of Age, F/M, Humanstuck, Oops?, POV Second Person, Two Endings, kind of, one will be happy and the other one kinda just isn't?, the main pairing is eridan/vriska
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-19 20:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1482667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postfixrevolution/pseuds/postfixrevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You left her in the pouring rain and told yourself the ache in your chest was freedom after a long burden of strife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. apathy, maybe

She's kind of been... stringing you along these past couple of years. Like a spider setting its delicate trap, all silky strings and thin foothold; hers is delicately sharp teases and the sultry smell of ocean under her blueberry shampoo. They've been pulling you in closer; in this present hindsight, you can see those missed warning glints of her immeasurable rage, her trouble-making tendencies, her fierce need to be nothing except everything. 

_How long has it been?_ you think. Of course, Vriska has never let you forget it: two years, four months, and seventeen days as of tonight. Maybe a few hours, too, because she stole you from your awkward winter camp dance-date one song in, laughing at your badly hidden discomfort. It's been a long, long time. You were a blind sophomore then. A stupid junior then. You are a fool of a senior now. 

Tonight is prom night. She's a vision in ocean black and supernova blue. You'd ditched the tie two hours ago. She'd ditched the heels an hour ago. You two had ditched the dance a half hour ago. It's pouring outside and she's twirling in the downpour, laughing like the rain is her drug and she's flying high, high, _higher_. 

You struggle to keep up with her. You often struggle to keep up with her. She danced an eighth's time too fast. She ran faster than you, never let you win a race even if it hurt her. When she was injured, her mouth worked a little faster than you could. Vriska didn't wait. Her love was fast — conditional, you think whilst sprinting in your tuxedo in the pounding rain. 

When she stops in the middle of the school's track, head tilted up and tasting the downpour, you finally pad up beside her, huffing with your hands on your knees. You're not dressed for running and your loafer-clad feet begin to show signs of soreness. She opens one onyx-brown eye to survey you, and her blue-painted lips curl up into a smirk. 

"Couldn't run any slower, Eridan?" she teases silkily, both eyes trained on you and deep as the night sky in the dark of midnight. You don't answer, instead continuing to regain your breath. "Come _on_ ," Vriska taunts, stretching out the second word exactly eighty-eight extra milliseconds. "Keep up with me!" 

She breaks into a run again, rain flying off of her like liquid stars in the light of the moon; you find it hard to breathe in her quasi-outer space. Chasing her leads you back to the school parking lot, weaving in and out of cars and limos and fancy covered-carriages until you're standing before her standing before your car as she examines her nails like she's been waiting forever. 

Your cold fingers fumble with the keys and your new seats are ruined as rainwater is dripped all over them, but she takes over the wheel, and you sit and watch her. Vriska revels in the attention, lips twitching up into a smirk when she sees you watching her from the corner of her eyes. With a mischievous wink, she turns her head back to the road and continues driving. 

There's no destination in mind and she doesn't seem to care. You don't know what to make of her with the window half open, feeling the rain collide with her open palm, the wind billow through her unruly hair as she drives. The inside of your expensive car is fucked, though, and you're pretty sure that you're annoyed with that. 

The streets are empty in this pouring rain, but she still stops at the red light. Vriska shifts the car into park and you shoot her a quizzical look; she shoots you one back, half-lidded eyes and lasciviously curved lips. Maybe you should kiss her. You're in the middle of a street in the rain with gold lamp lights flickering all around you. She has the best timing, always seeming to make things go her way. Vriska calls it luck, calls it her perfect aptitude to always make the situation hers. The credit is always hers, now that you think of it. 

She's the one that has brought you here, after all. This movie-perfect street in the rain. This whatever-it-is between you two in the middle of prom night. Her breath is warm against your face, smelling like the mint gum she always seems to adore; you could kiss her, go to college with her, keep to the past two years, four months, and seventeen days. She would say it's a good thing she stole you from your date all that time ago. 

Instead, you sneeze. She's affronted, hiding it quickly with a snort, and wraps her hand behind your head, leaning herself against your forehead anyway. 

"So," she breathes against your mouth. "Enjoy prom?" 

Vriska expects an affirmative. Wants an affirmative. You look her right in the eyes — they look like obsidian in this dim light — and briefly you recount the off-beat dancing, and soreness of your feet, the raggedness of the breath she's barely let you regain. And your ruined new car. 

Running your fingers along hers, too softly and carefully for what you mean to say, you slowly peel them away, moving your head away from hers. You close your eyes so you can't see her expression, but imagine it as anger, just as one-dimensional as you've found her. 

Throwing the door open, you step out into the frigid rain. The thought that the car is yours doesn't occur in the moment, only her whispering your name and you replying humorlessly. 

"Didn't let me keep up with you, Vris." 

You sprint off and leave her in the pouring rain, telling yourself the ache in your chest is freedom after a long burden of strife. The scene is dramatically pathetic or pathetically dramatic; either way, it leaves one and one, not one plus one, and you're pretty sure that's all that counts. Looking back isn't an option you allow for yourself, and she doesn't chase after you, which you apathetically choose not to feel about. 

After that, you catch hypothermia. You don't make it to school for the last two weeks and miss graduation. The diploma is mailed to you, and so are your car keys. You decide to attend a college on the west coast by the ocean, far away from sun-burnt Texas, and you don't see Vriska Serket again. 


	2. probably pity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you left, she fell in love with a photographer in France and for that, you almost kind of regret it.

You're kind of drunk when you see a girl with a dark blue bob and tanned legs standing at the bar, and you walk over and ask if she was tired of standing and wanted to get down with you. She barks out laugh and swirls the iced scotch in her glass; you don't immediately take it as a no. 

"I don't make it a point take solicitations from _stran_ gers," she giggles, drawing out the second to last syllable exactly eighty-eight milliseconds too long. (You don't know how can tell but know you know it's perfectly right.) The girl turns to face you, a thin smirk plastered across her lips, and when brown eyes meet yours, you swear. She's surprised, too, vigorously shaking her head as if to clear it, rustling the blue short hair on her head in a way that made it catch on strobing light in the prettiest way. 

Vriska Serket runs a hand through her purposely messy hair like she always used to do when frustrated; you follow the idiosyncrasy and wonder if she cut off all her hair to make it easier just to do so. It's so different. Her lipstick is gone, too, but she still has that smooth curve to her lips, made fuller by the lack of distracting color. She's oddly different and painfully similar all at the same time. 

"You want a drink?" she offers uncertainly, and it isn't until the bartender places an Irish beer in front of you (how did she know it was your favorite?) that you realize you'd been staring at her and mentally cataloguing every way she's the same and different the entire time. (The laugh she laughed earlier is less condescending, too, and you don't know if it's the alcohol or the aftereffects of her that make the sound cause your stomach to churn.) Tearing your eyes away, you mutter a thanks and take a swig of your drink. 

No words are spoken and you don't even look at her again until you hear her set down her empty glass with a clink. Then, you consider the questions you have. Why she's even acknowledging you. How she is. Why she never called to give you the hell you expected. Why she looks so different and has changed so much and _when_ it happened (and if _you_ had anything to do with it). _Who she is_ because you look at the girl in no makeup with the navy blue hair that barely skims her chin and the money she's laid down to buy your drink and you can't tell if she's really the selfish girl you left in the rain or not. 

(They have the same eyes, still brown with the naturally mischievous angle, but the acute sharpness has transitioned into a sharp acuteness. Her voice is more comfortable than the false silk she once wove it into, more like the husky rumble that were her words when she forgot to conceal them behind some facade. You see her when she blinks, and her brows never furrow under some invisible burden like they did when you were younger.) 

(You want to ask what happened to Vriska Serket, but she's right in front of you and you don't know what you're supposed to think.) 

"So France, huh?" you croak instead, and she raises an eyebrow at you in a mix of pity and incredulity. You pout, averting your eyes defensively and she _drops it_ as if it's an argument she willingly doesn't care to win. 

"I go to school here. It's far. Different. New." She shrugs, calls for another drink in the perfect French you never knew she had; you watch the way her shoulders don't curve as inward as they used to, the way her head doesn't tilt so much where you could see up her nose and she looked like an ass. "You?" 

"California," you reply automatically. "A nice kind 'a different. Sunny, and it's close to the ocean." She used to love the ocean, you recall, remembering the way she would smell like the sea beneath her blueberry shampoo. "It's bluer than it was then." 

Her frown grows at the mention of the past, a grimace like something bitter going down her throat, and she forces a laugh and replies, "There's no sea here. I can't even remember what salt water smells like! I don't really miss it or anything, though." 

(She's lying.) 

"One of the problems 'a livin' in France," you suppose. "It's so far." 

"It's _good_." 

You nod numbly, trying to ignore the second conversation that drums on dully in the back of your mind. 

( _"Why so far?"_

_"I left to show you what you did to me. I ended up learning what I did to you."_

_"I thought I didn't miss you but I see you every time I look out my window."_

_"I don't know if I'm glad there's nothing here to remind me of you or not."_

_"Why did you go again?"_

_"I thought I wanted to hurt you back, but instead I grew up."_ ) 

The silence that creeps in lingers. Vriska finishes her scotch, calls for a new one, and refills your beer, paying for it before you can even realize your cup was refilled. She doesn't say anything about you paying her back. You don't count the minutes, only knowing unconsciously that they are passing somewhere between the cups of alcohol, and maybe she's a bit drunker than she was before when she breaks the silence again. 

"You know," she begins, setting down her glass and looking at you. You gaze straight back. "I thought about it." 

"What di'you think about?" 

She haphazardly waves you off. "I thought about it a long time after prom 'fore I decided." If Vriska notices the way you tense at the mention of that night, she doesn't let it interrupt her. "It wasn't you that couldn' keep up. It was me, too. You expected some shit load'a lovey-dovey _responsibility_ 'r whatever and I didn't _want_ that. You were s'upid. I was so stupid. We were both such stupid, _stupid_ fucks." 

Vriska polishes off her scotch and slams the glass down triumphantly. She doesn't order a new one. You take a moment to process the words, and you half want to blame the alcohol for the fact that you keep hearing an apology in her words. Her brown eyes watch you intently. 

"Vris," you mutter, and she tears her eyes away, asking the bartender for two waters. You lose your thoughts in the clatter of glasses and she keeps her focus on her drink. 

"Point is, Eridan," she whispers eventually. Her fingers idly fiddle with the ring you just noticed hanging from her necklace. It's simple and silver with a garnet and two black gems nestled in it. (And seeing it makes your mouth feel dry.) "I think we'd both be unhappier if you hadn't left me there." 

Her voice is so soft, more like she breathed and your mind filled the blanks than she had actually spoken at all. You don't know what to say and down your water to keep from asking what she meant, where she got that ring. Vriska must have sensed your eyes on the offending jewelry because her slim fingers curl around it tightly, as if protecting what it meant to her from your prying eyes. 

"And I'm happy." You turn your head away from her, desperately trying to keep a scowl off your face. "Aren't you?" The question makes your chest _ache_ like it did those years ago; you're so certain it's anger, but you don't know if you want to express it — not here when her closed eyes make her look like serenity and her closed fist feels like it could be crushing your heart. 

You opt not to answer and she seems fine with that, fingering the ring as she sits beside you. The brief jingle of metal snaps you away from thoughts — memories of some weeks spent second guessing, months later when your family methodically began to fall apart, or when you almost lost college and you almost but not really fell in love with a girl who loved the sea. The garnet of her ring glows in the dull bar light; your eyes follow it as she wears it on her right hand like a promise ring, biting the inside of your cheek as she quickly examines it before stowing her hand away. 

"It was a coincidence seeing you around, Eridan," she blurts as she stands, and you weigh the consequences of telling her it was a pleasure. (You choose not to lie and weakly humor the idea of the two of you meeting again, maybe. She chuckles softly at the remark before she leaves.) 

You watch her as she meets a man with blonde hair by the exit, smiling silkily at him as he wraps an arm around her shoulder. Her mouth forms something that might have been, _just an old friend_ , and his shades bob as he nods his head. Vriska spares once last indecipherable glance at you, and you wonder if she had seen through you the entire time because as she walked away, her eyes almost looked like pity. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: alternate ending because Eridan deserves some kind of a happy ending, too


	3. reasonably regret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know you're at an all time low when your dating website of choice sets you up with your cousin.
> 
> (alternatively; From the way she says his name, you can tell she dated him only because he's the last person that could ever remind her of you.)
> 
> [ alternate ending, because Eridan gets happiness too ]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> casually posts final chapter months later

Feferi smiles weakly at you because she's realized it first. The realization hits you soon after, and it's like a kick except straight through your ribs and into the _heart_. As you dumbly stagger into the chair across from your orange-haired cousin, she asks if you're okay.

"Fuck no," you mutter, blankly staring at the table. "This is so fuckin' fucked up on all the fuckin' levels, Fef."

Her weak smile turns into a concerned frown as she places a tentative hand on yours. "Cheer up, cuz; at least it means match.com thinks we're compatible, right? It's like best cousins, but certified by the internet!"

You pull your hand away, bury your face in your folded arms and moan immaturely in a way that conveys how much you don't actually care how big of a scene you're making. Feferi has the grace not to look surprised or embarrassed by your antics. As much as you really love her, incest isn't on your list of things you want to be charged of.

"I'm leavin'," you mutter into your self-made cavern. It's not very loud, but Feferi doesn't ask you to repeat yourself. She raps you softly on the head, ruffling your platinum blonde hair like you were kids again. It almost makes you feel sad for suddenly wanting to depart, but you decide your dying heart can take an extra punch for today. There's really no where lower to go.

There's a soft clink as your cousin puts down a few dollars for your drinks, and she's out the door before you are. When you finally leave, you find yourself walking in the direction of the beach. The perks of college on the west coast is how easy it was to get there. That's how you find yourself at the far end of the pier where the fishermen usually stand; it's too cold for fishing on this cloudy day in winter-turning-spring, so you end up alone. Or at least, almost alone.

There's a girl standing against the railing, looking out at still waters. There's not even a boat to stare at, only stormy skies and blue. Something about her long black hair and slumped shoulders that gives you pause. Upon hearing your footsteps, she turns around, and you end up stopping in your tracks. Even with the small distance between the both of you, you can hear her gasp. She gapes at you with a slack mouth and indecipherable eyes that make something in you _twist_.

Her hair still reaches her waist in the same lackadaisical waves and bends and her quick brown eyes are still sharp as she watches the world around her, but something in Vriska Serket has changed and you can see it the way she carries herself so differently from the pattern you memorized three years ago. If she notices you noticing her, she has no sharp jabs intended to wreck your train of thought prepared, and then it hits you.

Vriska's lost some of her sharp edges: the painstakingly outlined jut of her lips, the arrogant angle of her eyes from holding her head way too high, the stupid lock of unevenly hand-cut hair she always let drape over one side of her forehead for the sake of "being only the _beeeeeeeest_ the femme fatale". Maybe it's some maturity that she found after you, or maybe she's trying out a different look and you're reading too much into the weight in her eyes and the slope of her lips when she turns her head and sighs out toward the ocean.

You find the air next to her somewhat charged, and you feel tense, even though she looks fine with pretending as if your presence does not exist. Leaning against the railing and staring out at the empty ocean, you feel like you're swimming, but in a sea of thoughts rather than saltwater. You can count the years (but not the months, or days, or hours, since she wasn't there to remind you and you didn't want to recall) since you've seen her, and you stand there and wonder why she's here. How she's here. What she's doing and what she has been doing. You wonder if she's remembering that rainy night three years ago or if she's just mentally wishing you to go away. None of those thoughts escape your lips.

"So. California, huh?" she asks. "You're basically an ocean city boy now." You look at her from the corner of your eye; she's still gazing at the sea, but in a way you can only call forlorn. It's not a word you thought you could ever attribute to her, yet it fits so well. Vriska looks forlorn.

"I go to school here," you tell her. "It's different. Different and better than that fuckin' desert city in the middle of hot, searin' anguish."

"Different, huh? The ocean really _is_ close. France didn't have this. I'm aaaaaaaalmost jealous," she notes casually.

This time, you turn your head to look at her. She doesn't meet your eye, only frowns. Her olive-skinned profile against the stormy grey clouds is dull, and you wonder if the rain would wash away those dull edges and find a less lethargic Vriska there. You want to know — almost desperately — what happened to the cruel girl you once knew (and if you had anything to do with it).

"France?" you echo.

She hums in acknowledgement. "For school, too. It was weird, but I think I liked it. I didn't get an ocean view, but I met people," she says vaguely. A gust of wind blows and she shivers slightly. You pull your striped scarf in a little closer. "Good people," she adds quietly, as if it were an afterthought. You're unable to quell your curiosity as you ask her, "Good how?"

This time, she looks at you. You catch the onyx-brown of her irises as they dart toward you, almost-but-not-quite reminiscent of the flashing, cutting eyes of a girl long past. She narrows her eyes at you, scrutinizing you, and underneath her even stare, you find that you can stare back. So you do, until she exhales sharply and looks away.

"Good as in good to me," she answers curtly. She almost sounds flippant, detached, and yet (he has known — _knows_ — her voice so well) he can hear the hurt behind it.

"I probably didn't even deserve it," she comments ruefully, running a hand through her bangs. It's a habit she never dropped. With an artificial smile on her face and a tight throat, she laughs, "Man, he was so lame and kind and _dumb_." You shoot her a weird look — raised eyebrow and confused frown — and she looks straight at you and cackles, almost painfully. With a terrible smile, she laughs until it begins to sound like breathless sobbing, and when she's done, she drags her fingers through her hair and pulls it over her face. With a heavy sigh, she shakes her head and turns away, staring at the grey horizon again. Somehow, her name forms quietly on your lips, and it makes her curl her arms tighter around herself.

( _In your head, it goes like this:_

_"What, did ya love him?" you ask her bluntly. You can almost feel her tense up beside you, coil up and prepare to snap._

_"And what if I did?" she hisses back harshly. Her voice isn't muffled by the curtain of hair around her. ___

_"Then I wouldn't be the only thing you left behind when you went to France." Is your simple reply.)_

"I hoooooooonestly don't know why he stuck around me," she announces suddenly, voice strained as she tries to sound light. "There really are poor people who are incapable of seeing the bad in others, I guess! Funny, isn't it? If it were me back then, I don't think if I could ever jump in front of a gun for anyone. How gross." Vriska doesn't say anything after that, and you can't tell if she's talking about herself or the boy. You don't think she'd be one to disrespect the dead, but you can't tell with her. The quiet is filled only by the soft lapping of the sea, and you find that you want to see her face.

The cold wind plays at her curtain of long black hair, effectively concealing her face; you absently wonder if maybe she had stood alone at this pier so long, thinking about unnamed good people, that the blue her hair once was had bled out into the sea. You watch the dark strands flutter back and forth and don't speak. Maybe the color will seep out of your purple hair, too, and paint the sky dusk and violet. The silence and your pondering stretch on until she exhales.

" _Tavros,_ " is the name she breathes. It's both a heavy sigh and a bitter whisper, and it takes a moment for you to put the pieces together. From the way she says his name, you can tell she dated ( ~~loved~~ ) him because he's the last person that could ever remind her of you. The revelation empowers you to reach out and finally tuck her hair behind her ear, lingering by her head. She's not frowning (just as you expected), but staring emptily at the waters. At your touch, her eyes find yours, and they could have been glaring if they didn't look so tired.

"Ya know what, Vris?" you ask her, unperturbed by her umbrage. She tries glaring harder, and you have to resist telling her she's not intimidating at all (you wonder if it's your own maturity that has dulled your fear of her, or maybe hers that she can't seem so cruel anymore). A drop of water falls and hands on your hand, and you shift to let it drip down your palm. As raindrops start to fall, you tell her, "You're an ocean city."

She stares at you for a few seconds (you count the beads of water that collect on her hair, her eyelashes, her cheeks), and when she turns back toward the horizon, you mirror her. In the distance, there's a boat crossing the waters, trying to return to the docks to seek shelter. It finally provides something to stare it.

"Do _you_ know what, Eridan?" she asks suddenly, never once looking away from the boat. "That was the dumbest fucking way you could have told me that I'm different." She says it sharply, without an ounce of hesitation, and it feels so much like Vriska, but doesn't at all. The sharpness of her words is familiar, yet there's no malice behind it.

"You ain't arguin' with it," you point out. She rubs at her bare arms, choosing not to respond. Without a second thought, you drape your damp scarf over her shoulders and take her by the wrist. The air is frigid, but you can still feel the searing imprint of her bones under your fingers. Vriska doesn't make a sound until you're off the pier, and when she does, she just exhales a soft laugh and tells you, "I guess you're France, then."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love this pairing too much, and I also love rain and symbolism (and losers who can't express their feelings right so they use shitty comparisons to do so). Hope you all enjoyed the story, alternate endings and all!


End file.
